I think he plays you and those like minded like a violin, or Pavlov's dogs. He got you all drinking the cool aid and barking on command at every turn. I don't believe for one minute that he's "pro pipeline".

yet 3 pipelines will be built under trudeau.

That's not exactly anti pipeline.

There are 3 parties in canada. One that would have approved every pipeline, environmental be damned, one that would have banned every pipeline, economy be damned and one party that would try to balance out the two.

Striking a balance doesn't seem like a bad idea to me, and he's going to lose votes in BC standing up for a pipeline getting built, so no, I don't think he's anti pipeline.

Logged

Someday I'll care about milpoints.

jollyjacktar

I don't think he'll do Alberta any favours. I have no faith in the man whatsoever. You love him now but the day will come you'll get tired of it all and kick him across the floor to the opposition or obscurity. It happens to them all eventually. We'll just differ on when we want to see that day come, Altair.

If they are built during his blighted reign, it will not be because of him. It will be because somebody in his government or party with more brains and spine than him forces his hand.

He will do as little as possible for as long as possible rather than do anything that will jeopardize the adoration of his fan club.

He is happier sitting at his desk in Parliament signing autographs and imperiously ignoring the proceedings that are too uncomfortable or too boring or beneath him while Bardish Jagger defends his poor ethics. I am all for equality of treatment and opportunity 'n' all, but I am still a traditionalist, and the sight of a "man" hiding behind the skirts of a woman does not sit well at all - and that is a polite understatement.

If they are built during his blighted reign, it will not be because of him. It will be because somebody in his government or party with more brains and spine than him forces his hand.

He will do as little as possible for as long as possible rather than do anything that will jeopardize the adoration of his fan club.

he's been talking about the need to build pipelines since he was named leader of the liberal party, if you want to be irrational and think he's being "forced" to do it be my guest, I'll simply focus on talking about reality, not this fantasy world where every bad thing he does is on him and every good thing he does is because of someone else.

“Anti-establishment politics is very cost-effective. That’s probably one of the reasons why it’s so appealing to politicians, because if you can tap into how concerned people are about the future, how they’re having difficulty making ends meet, how they feel that the system is working against them. …You don’t have to give them pamphlets, you don’t have to remind them to vote, you don’t need to give them a drive to the polls. They’ll get out and they’ll vote, because those voters, it’s all about punishment.

“Justin Trudeau is one. I’m not sure that everyone would agree with me, but the reality is that Justin Trudeau on paper should be the establishment candidate. Because after all, he is the son of a former prime minister, he had a very comfortable upbringing, his grandfather on his mother’s side was a Liberal cabinet minister. Although the Conservatives tried to portray him as a person of privilege and part of the Canadian elite, he very carefully tried to kind of fashion himself as the scrappy, almost, anti-politician.

“The thing about Justin Trudeau is, people talk about people flocking to him, but the reality is, he was a vehicle to punish the Stephen Harper Conservatives, and to get them out of power. Canadians in the last election were looking for change, looking for something different from politics that they saw in the last decade. And Justin Trudeau was the vehicle, and they kind of rallied around him.”

“The interesting thing about the Harper Conservatives is that, for them, they considered themselves and positioned themselves as an outsider to the political elites. Which is why Stephen Harper would take on the courts, would take on the media, he’d take on the civil service. In their case, it was them against the establishment, as opposed to, when you’re looking at Donald Trump, he was talking about how Americans had suffered under the establishment.

“We saw similar types of messaging in terms of the Harper government feeling that they were political victims, but they never really transitioned into giving voice to Canadians who were worried about the future. On the contrary, for Stephen Harper, he had a narrative related to Canada being an energy superpower. He had a narrative related to Canada being an exception in terms of the global recession in 2008. And his narrative was, the Conservatives are steady stewards of the economy, and everything is okay.”

“Right now, a lot of these anti-establishment candidates are not incumbent governments. So the trap is, how can you be anti-establishment when hypothetically you are the government, and are the establishment? That’s why incumbents in this age of voter rage are under siege.”

“I think it’s going to be very difficult for them (Liberals) to run as an anti-establishment party, because they now have to defend a record and they now have to take responsibility for their government’s policies. The one thing that they could do in this very fragile environment is focus on the things they have done to make things a little better for Canadians.

“In the polling that we’ve done, 50 per cent of Canadians think that the next generation will have a lower standard of living, only 15 per cent think that the standard of living will be higher for the next generation. That should be the one stat that should put fear in the hearts of Liberals, that Canadians are more pessimistic now than they were under Stephen Harper.

“This is why for the Liberals, issues such as legalizing marijuana, issues related to democratic reform, gender equality: those are all important issues, many of those issues are supported by a majority of Canadians. But they don’t stack up against, ‘Will my son or daughter have a job?’ And I think that’s why for the Liberals, they have to be aware that they do not govern by distraction on issues that have a second level of importance, because they’ll get punished.”

“For any politician to have a positive frame around how they’re trying to connect with voters, they need to have positive policies. Many times the Conservatives like to run on being tough on criminals. They want to talk about controlling the number of refugees or immigrants that are coming into the country because they’re concerned about security threats to Canada. Those issues, yes they resonate with Canadians, but they do not align with having a positive demeanour.

“If the Conservatives wanted to focus on opportunity, if the Conservatives wanted to focus on, ‘We need to create an environment where Canadians can work hard, and they can have a good standard of living, and their kids can go to college and university,’ that would be a positive frame. We haven’t been seeing that. We’ve seen from the Conservatives, kind of, effectively, taking a page from the previous administration, focusing on very narrow issues, that are very good at raising funds, but they don’t align with the brand that it looks like Andrew Scheer is trying to portray. My point is, sure you can be positive, but you need positive policies or aspirational policies. And I think it is possible for the Conservatives to have that, but they need to put them in the window so that the brand aligns with the substance.”

“I don’t even think that governments have to improve the day-to-day lives of Canadians. They have to create an environment where Canadians and citizens everywhere think that they have a chance to improve. Because right now for that small minority of people that feel disenfranchised, they feel the system is stacked against them, that they work hard but they can’t make ends meet, they’re worried about the future.

“I don’t think that writing a cheque to everyone that is underemployed or unemployed is the solution. I think creating an environment that is more merit-based, where people feel if they work hard that they can have a middle-class existence, I think that’s actually the solution.”

“The whole twist on this is how very small swings in voters have a disproportionate impact on the outcome of the election. It doesn’t really take a lot of disenfranchised citizens who are anti-establishment-minded and looking to punish the establishment to reshape the outcome of the election.”

He also has a reputation for saying different things to different audiences.

Fair enough.

However, off the top of my head, when he became liberal leader, he went to alberta and spoke about the need for pipelines.

He went to new york and spoke to Americans about balancing the environmental and pipelines.

He's gone on a recent cross country speaking tour and reiterated how kinder Morgan was going to be built.

And to top it off, there is word coming out how he won't allow BC to interfere with a federal project.

So going off all of that, I'm going to just give him the benifit of the doubt and say that he's not going back down or flip flop on the pipeline issue and that 3 pipelines will be built, Line 3, Kinder Morgan, and Keystone XL.

I don't know how this isn't being viewed as a victory for the energy sector, Alberta, and canada as a whole.

WARNING: The consumption of alcohol may create the illusion that you are tougher,smarter, faster and better looking than most people.Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats. (H.L. Mencken 1919)Zero tolerance is the politics of the lazy. All it requires is that you do nothing and ban everything.

WARNING: The consumption of alcohol may create the illusion that you are tougher,smarter, faster and better looking than most people.Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats. (H.L. Mencken 1919)Zero tolerance is the politics of the lazy. All it requires is that you do nothing and ban everything.

Environmentalists and some native groups seem to have heard different messages.

Liberals don't get many votes in Alberta anyway...

environmentalists heard about how canada needs to take a leading role regarding climate change, and how the process regarding approving pipelines was broken and took this to mean that they could stall out energy companies until they gave up.

Native groups heard how they needed to be consulted on a nation to nation basis regarding energy projects and took this to mean that every first nation group got a veto.